STUDENT TECHNOLOGY FEE, 2006-2007

 

This report describes uses of the 2006-2007 Student Technology Fee at UW Oshkosh.   Several of the projects or items detailed below were approved in earlier years and continue as permanently funded projects.   The remaining one-time expenditures were approved after review and recommendations from the Student Technology Fee Committee.

2006-2007 Technology Fee Projects

General Access Computer Lab Laser Printing Support

Rather than install a pay-per-page system, in the past students have preferred to reserve an amount of the Student Technology Fee to cover the cost of paper, toner, and maintenance.  The amount of this proposal is based on $5,500 per laser printer ($400 maintenance, $2,100 paper, $3,000 toner).  This reflects higher costs of toner and higher use of paper from last year.  There are currently 13 printers available in the labs. We would like to add a second printer to Swart lab in case one should go down and also upgrade the existing printer in Swart.  Maintenance costs are lower when the printers match and the current printer is 5 years old. 

The Student Technology Fee will continue to fund support costs for fourteen laser printers located in the General Access computer labs.  Funds will cover costs of paper, toner cartridges, printer maintenance, and 2 printers for the Swart Lab.  Funding: $82,208.

Software for General Access Computer Labs

Each summer Academic Computing installs software upgrades and new application software in the GCA labs.  This software is used for classroom instruction, as well as providing tools students need to complete assignments, papers, research, etc.  Software is provided for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computing platforms.  The majority of the costs this year will be to upgrade several applications on the Macintosh platform to OS X standards.  We will also need to maintain licenses for system software such as Centurian Guard Client, Keyserver, and Norton Ghost. 

The Student Technology Fee will fund licensing of new or upgraded software applications for the General Access computer labs.  Funding: $25,000.

General Computer Access (GCA) Lab Hardware Upgrade

This year’s GCA Lab upgrade will replace all computers in Halsey lab (97 Windows PCs, 32 Linux PCs, 7 Mac PCs).  The Windows and Linux computers in Halsey are HP/Compaq 2.4GHz computers with 512M RAM.  They are having problems running specialized software like AutoCAD.  We will not need to replace the flat panel monitors on the Windows or Linux computers at this time.  The majority of the funding for this project will come from State GCA Lab funds.

The Student Technology Fee will fund the purchase of PCs to continue the GCA labs on a three-year replacement cycle.  Funding: $16,618.

General Computer Access Student Lab Staffing

Last year’s budget reductions removed $20,000 of funding for student employees who staff the general access labs.  The student Lab Consultants are available to assist with login problems, including password changes, and other minor computer problems.  They provide base security for the lab equipment and patrons as well.  We have been working to improve the computer skill and customer service levels of the lab consultants over the past two years.  Provision of these funds last year allowed us to maintain the current levels of lab access for all students.  The IT office has placed a freeze on student wages, so there will be no need to increase this request.  Student Technology Fee dollars are already being allocated to provide late night lab consultant staffing in Radford and lab consultant staffing in Polk.

The Student Technology Fee will provide funding to Academic Computing to hire student lab consultants, to maintain the level of staffing in the GCA labs.  Without this funding, staffing in the labs would need to be cut, leading to shorter hours and even some labs being completely unstaffed (card access only).  Funding:  $20,000.

Presentations Lab Upgrade

The Presentations Lab is a multimedia development environment available to all students.  University students from all disciplines use our lab to produce research posters, prepare materials for journal submissions, create video projects, develop web sites and produce presentation materials for classes.  We offer free use of Digital Still and Video cameras, as well as one on one consultation with our staff.  This request is for 5 Core Duo iMacs to replace 4-and 5-year old Macs, DVD Recorder Decks for tape to DVD conversion, upgrades of software and software tutorials, as well as contingency for repair of digital and video cameras.

The Student Technology Fee will purchase software, training materials, camera repair, video station upgrades, and computer replacements for the Presentations Lab.  Funding: $13,320.

Career Services Student Lab Upgrade

Career Services has a lab for students to use to do job searches, put together portfolios, create resumes and cover letters, as well research and email employers.  These computers are used daily by the traffic that comes into our office as well as groups and class presentations that occur in our office.  This proposal will replace the last few old computers.  There has also been an increase in the number of students and employers that have asked for wireless while in the Career Services office.  Employers frequently give students on-line assessments right in our office before or after they interview.  Many employers need to use their own computers for this for security or the assessment is on their own server and our computers can't log into it.  Otherwise students have to make a trip to their office to take these types of assessments.  Finally, we request continued support for no-fee printing from the Career Services lab.

The Student Technology Fee will provide funding to replace three computers in the Career Services student lab, provide a laptop and wireless access point, and also provide printing support for students researching career-related and /or resume materials.  Funding:  $6,264.

Counseling Center Stress Clinic

The Counseling Center has implemented a Stress Clinic that will be used by students.  The Stress Clinic will use a biofeedback software program called The Wild Devine.  The Wild Devine program is a biofeedback program which measures an individual’s skin temperature and heart rate variability which gives direct feedback to the person on the various changes in the body as they occur with visual cues on the computer screen.  Biofeedback is a tool for gaining control of your body processes to increase relaxation, relieve pain, and develop a healthier and a more calm state of mind.  The program is an interactive videogame in which students explore a virtual universe filled with mentors and exercises designed to enhance their ability to relax, learn how to control their body’s reactions and enhance their focus.  It is most helpful in addressing anxiety disorders, test/math/speech anxiety, chronic stress, sleep problems, depression and performance enhancement. 

The Student Technology Fee will purchase two desktop computers and monitors, plus a laptop computer to run and promote this stress clinic effectively.  Funding:  $3,999.

Laptop Checkout in Polk Library

Polk Library proposes that the Student Technology Fee fund the purchase of 15 laptops for check-out to students in the library.  Checking out laptops would assist in letting students use more space in the library, and relieving some of the pressure on the General Access Computing Lab in Polk Library. Students could take the laptops closer to the books and journals they are using for research. Laptops would be equipped with Microsoft Office and other software in consultation with Academic Computing. The computers will be both wireless and wired capable. They will have CD Read/Write ability. Drive Shield will be put on the computers to restore the image when a user is finished with it.

The Student Technology Fee will provide partial funding for the purchase of 8 laptops as a pilot program.  Funding:  $12,456.

No Fee Library Printing

The library continues to make this highly popular service of laser printing even more useful.  Electronic reserve allows the library to store electronically supplementary class readings and allows students to easily locate them and print out the readings that they need.  Students, who access these readings from library workstations and print them, directly benefit from the “no fee” laser printing.  This past fall, students used this service to print class syllabi which were placed on eReserve or D2L.  During the past few years, the library has taken action to control the cost of this service, save paper and provide better service to students by replacing single-sided printers with printers that duplex (print on both sides of the paper).  These printers are located in the Reference, Educational Media Collection, Government Documents, Archives, Library Instruction Labs, and E-Reserves service areas. 

The Student Technology Fee will continue to fund “no fee” laser printing in Polk Library for students using electronic information resources.  Funding: $18,000.

Dempsey 130 Student Computer Printing Support

Last year a 20-computer lab was installed in Dempsey 130.  Jointly managed by the Registrar’s Office and the Undergraduate Advising Resource Center (UARC), this lab is used by students for online registration and advising services.  These computers are used daily and provide a wonderful service to students.

The Student Technology Fee will provide support for the toner, paper, and maintenance of the two laser printers in the lab.  Funding:  $5,000.

No Fee Residence Hall Computer Lab Printing

Residence life provides a web-based printing service called “myPrint” through the student portal.   This service allows all students the ability to print MS office documents and Adobe’s pdfs from their own computers onto the front desk printer.  The system imposes a hard limit of 150 pages per student per semester. As of today, 9,251 pages have been printed through the portal.  We have a printing policy that is enforced by the front desk workers and myPrint.  The policy stated that only 20 pages can be printed out at one time.  myPrint will not print any document that is larger than 20 pages. Furthermore, we do not allow printing for non-academic reasons to minimize waste.

The Student Technology Fee will fund Residence Hall computer lab laser printing support (toner, paper, maintenance).  Funding:  $8,000.

Expansion of MIO Residence Hall Portal

For the last two to three years the Residence Life portal (referred to as myResLife) has been evolving as the primary source of information and primary tool of administration within the Department of Residence Life.  myResLife is currently used by students and staff alike for everything from current events on campus and abroad,  to online printing, to staff administration, and everything in between.  The portal continues to grow and service more departmental and student needs as it evolves into its next version based upon Microsoft .Net infrastructure.  This proposal is to upgrade from myResLife to a campus portal, expanding the existing portal to a campus wide system.

The Student Technology Fee will purchase hardware and infrastructure to expand the myResLife portal to the entire campus.  Funding:  $25,000.

Xythos File Storage and Collaboration

Xythos Digital Locker Suite 5.0 is a set of products to help academic environments securely collaborate and share content of any type both on and off the campus network.  Xythos would be an alternative to our current Novell file storage system that would improve each user’s ability to manage their own file systems, especially to share files with custom groups on campus or off.  For example, an individual user would be able to setup a shared storage folder for his team in a class project and could also set permissions on a single file to provide a link to a resume to prospective employers off-campus.  This proposal would be the beginning of a 2-year project to phase out the Novell student server and migrate users to the Xythos platform. Academic Computing will pay for subsequent annual technical support and software maintenance.   In addition Academic Computing will need to maintain the annual campus Novell license (approximately $50,000).
 
The Student Technology Fee will fund server hardware and Xythos licenses for student users.  Funding:  $79,803.

Digital Movie Projection for Reeve 307

Reeve Union would like to replace/upgrade the digital movie projection system in the Reeve Union Movie Theatre, Room 307. During this past year, many students have commented on the declining picture quality in the movie theatre. The projector that is currently installed has exceeded its life expectancy and no longer produces a picture that is of the quality expected by today’s movie-going student audiences. 
 
The Student Technology Fee will purchase a new 16mm projector for the Reeve Union Theater and a document camera, available at no cost to student organizations for presentations.  Funding:  $9,934.

Public Wireless Access

There were several student and faculty requests for increased wireless access on campus.  Since none of the requests had a clear plan or cost, the Student Technology Committee has requested that the IT Division on campus, in consultation with students and faculty, select a single academic building to map for wireless access.

The Student Technology Fee has committed a level of funding that should cover at least 10 additional wireless access points.  Funding:  $8,000.

Upgrades for the SLIC

There were several proposals for simple upgrades from for the Student Leadership & Involvement Center (SLIC):  providing print queue software, supporting free printing, and replacing old mice.  The print queue software will minimize unintended print jobs and help limit the amount of copies a user can print at one time. We plan on using a hand-me-down PC for this, since it will not need to be brand new.

The Student Technology Fee will provide funding for the majority of upgrades requested for SLIC.  The request for a flat panel monitor to go with the print queue was denied, but the queue data jack, no-fee printing and the replacement mice were funded.  Funding:  $4,135.

Theatre Recorder Workstation

The Fredric March Theatre provides entertainment for the students of UW Oshkosh by students of UW Oshkosh. Currently the Theatre is celebrating 35 years and we are proud of the work that we do. However, there is an ever increasing demand for more technology to be used in shows, and we don't have all of the resources needed.  This proposal requests a Marantz Professional CDR420. It is a MP3/CD Recorder workstation and would allow us to better provide sound for the shows that are done to enrich campus life.  

The Student Technology Fee will purchase hardware requested to improve Theatre sound resources.  Funding:  $1,092.

Wireless Printing Services

Set up the wireless network so that students using notebook computers in the library could print directly to the printers in the lab or somewhere else in the building. 

The Student Technology Fee will support this request, however, since the campus network is more complicated than a home network, the mechanisms to make this possible need to be researched.  The IT Division will research possible solutions and once one is found, they will report any funding needs to the Student Technology Fee Committee.  Funding:  $0.

Open Source Software

Use Open Office 2.0 in some computer labs.  This will save you money on the Microsoft Office licenses that you have to purchase.

The Student Technology Fee will support this request, however, the University has already begun a 3-year license agreement with Microsoft, so there is not an opportunity to save on the cost of Microsoft Office licenses.  Funding:  $0.

The figures provided in this Report are rounded up to the nearest hundred dollars.
Detailed budget information is maintained in the Information Technology Office.

November 08, 2006

Questions? Call 424-2368 or email knaapen@uwosh.edu

Student Technology Fee

UW Oshkosh